Bête Noire
by Pierides
Summary: Fear wasn't things that stood before you, palpable and obvious. Fear was the things you refused to the believe, the memories, and utter madness. What do they all fear and dare we to know? :Various Batman characters:
1. Not Trepidation, But Doubt

_(A/N):Inspired by a passage in the Crime Noir novel, In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes and supported by the prompt "Fear", #38 on the fourth prompt table of Livejournal's 50scenes community. Every passage in here describes a separate person. Jonathan Crane, Joker, Commissioner Gordon, Bruce Wayne, Pamela, and Harley are the people I chose to write about. Can you guess what person each paragraph corresponds to?_

_**bête noire** literally means "black beast" and has come to stand for "a person or thing especially disliked or dreaded; bane; bugbear."_

_Disclaimer: I don't own anything recognizable to Warner Bros, DC, or Christopher Nolan's Batman franchise. I bet the characters therein are relieved of that._

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Fear wasn't a trepidation of steel as eyes watched the setting sun; fear wasn't the technical click of numbers winding down on the surface of a group of barrels all sitting together and the numbers read that escape was attainable if you could get out in three minutes. Fear was the moment when your eyes met, a cruel, clawed hand that pierced your abdomen bypassing organs, leaving an icy reminder all the while, to your heart; it gripped that organ painfully without a sign of ever letting go and it was there even after your eyes left one another because you never knew if you'd see them again, and three minutes suddenly felt like an eternity. Fear was a coarse strip of nails that first wound around your feet, tying them painfully together and then, like a snake swung up and bound your arms in the same fashion. Its last target was the skin of your neck and you'd give little more than a gasp. Sometimes you felt **them** upon you, eyes dark as a tree's bark at midnight. The nails would tease your lips, threaten to silence and mar you. You wanted to stop breathing, wanted to cry because every second was too long and like a gnarled, rotted rose it invaded your brain: doubt that perhaps they never cared, and you'd just die, little more than a memory to them. They wouldn't even notice and your final moments would a desperate but silent cry..._What have I done?! What have I done_...Then silence, forever, ceaseless...


	2. Not Fate, But Letting Go

Fear wasn't staring your fate in the face, the wrought and strong iron bars that imprisoned you as you wondered where in the labyrinthine citadel you rested, breathing always breathing, and staring. Fear certainly couldn't be defined in your standards as the loss of pride and power for that had been a sting, a mere slap to your face, and you had endured far worse; blood, snickers, crimson and black and blue. Crows and coarse, rough material pungent in sweat and tears. Fear was the present. Scarlet, sweet waves, yours hands longing and screaming to touch, to take, but your mind revolting; it clung to dark memories and it halted you even as you wanted nothing more than to break free. Fear was your memories; not their mere existence for there was nothing you could do to make them not exist, no it was their effect on the here and now. It was a worm that led you astray, made you question. For you there was no fear, nothing concrete at least. It was metaphysical, planted both in lack of confidence in your self and also in letting your last visages of hospitality fade. An angel stood before you, Godsent, and you wanted to believe because how else could a sinner like you, a frigid being many called heartless be blessed now? You were grossly undeserving, but gentle hands guided you. You were hesitant because life had taught you the gentleness that lied in deception and despite knowing somewhere, unexplained, how genuine this was, you feared you would push them away and nothing but ash would greet your end.


	3. Not A Figure, But the Truth

Fear wasn't a masked figure in the dark: unknown, enigmatic, and determined to halt your progress; fear wasn't a term you'd acknowledge. You were masked and you were quiet; you were genuine in word and never broke your vows. You were one amongst the select that danced to dysrhymthia: a feared, not one of the fearful. Fear did not exist in your vocabulary, not anymore, not since. All terror had fled with the flood of crimson you still saw and tasted in your dreams. Fear had created you, served its purpose, and disappeared leaving shadows, glinting silver moonlight, highlighting horror, highlighting silver like that of—Fear was was nothing, absolutely unneeded by you, but it fueled you and it was your only lie. Fear was the truth, the force that created you and what you didn't want to remember. Fear was the culmination of dual smiles: claret and raven, the transformation of a primrose to a belladonna, for they were your Bella. It was a wide smile stretching too far, so far it was painful. You hid beneath a face beneath a mask. Your only lie was your most detrimental and even as you heeded the call to become a harbinger yourself, you could never escape could you? At night amongst fog-covered stars, you still heard the glass breaking, the screams, your own voice. You thought tall-tales would take it away, but you remembered your own corroded blossoming, didn't you? Diluted, serpentine Adam. You didn't give affection or so you wanted everyone to think. Every time you saw your Eve suffering, no matter your qualms, you always helped because you needed her, even if the darker recesses called her a weakness. You retained enough of the old to care for her, the Eve who with your rib bone came into existence. And now you had someone to fear not because they meant you harm, but because you couldn't fathom the opposite pole clearly—for once you feared the unknown. You.


	4. Not Them, But You

Fear wasn't the moment of betrayal, the very second your partner was no longer man and teeth elongated, putrid yellow liquid dripping from jowls; and eyes becoming an bestial red. Fear wasn't the induced quickening of your heart and the sudden buzzing that erupted in your mind; you had expected all of this, every reaction as you counted them on your fingers: fake, chemical, unreal every bit of it, yet the body became overloaded and the mind shut down and you fell. Realization was the unexpected, the opening of your eyes upon yourself. You never knew what you feared because you had yet to witness something that stole your breath and made you scream, but you saw it in that instant and it would haunt you forever afterward always a faucet. Fear was the extreme of human nature, the truth that lied beneath your surface so unassuming like a vine of mistletoe, slowly stealing life as a beautiful parasite. You faced yourself, the darkness inside and a void of vengeance, anger, and betrayal. It was a monster, growing like a blighted pumpkin, so sour that no pest would eat it. You almost lost, but then you felt a touch, a jarring sensation that reminded you of your disillusionment. You gained the power then to fully face yourself and till the garden of its weed. Yet it never left you, that image of what could've been. Fear was the notion of love, the sudden, helpless almost obsession that bound you the moment you saw your partner; you were a wilting sprig of rosemary and they a field of mint, soft like a lover. It was irrational, the attraction, so quick, so utterly sudden, you'd scant time to take a breath before you were drowning, yet you could breathe there. Were you afraid of this river branching, never reaching a fresh sea? You knew love was fickle, but feared being a curse in disguise. Yet still you came, unable to turn away. You were not Deliah and they certainly weren't Samson, but perfection lies in imperfection.


	5. Not the Past, But Your Future

Fear wasn't what it once had been to you, no more raven screeching, the sound of screams, their eyes as you stood helpless. Gunfire. You knew now how you could have done nothing, so young, such tragedy, but never your fault. Fear wasn't the feeling you felt swelling inside of you as deep in the eyes of night and dusk you stared pending death in the face—would tonight be your last; would he/she be the final battle you fought? This was your duty and you served it, never thanked, feared by both sides and hated just as equally. You shouldered praise when the course was smooth and fire when rapids were met. What fear was was **them**. Those close to you never ceased receiving gunfire. Insanity infected their wounds in the light of mere revenge, in the pus of betrayal, and in the crimson of understanding. What people feared most was what they could not understand, things hard and often painful to explain. You were a plague on the houses of those you fervently protected. You brought safety as much as you broke it, but even the slightest hope that good would triumph in the end drove you. You had come too far to stop. Fear was the aftermath as you stood amongst thunder, snow, ashes, and rain, electricity painting a horrid mural on the sky. Death you could face no matter what form it took—child, adult, man, beast, spirit—insanity you couldn't. You knew the risks, and perhaps those that knew you thought you a naïve idealist, but how wrong they were. You were fighting criminals here, people whose genius brought depravity. In order to beat them you had to out think them. You tread the line between harmony and chaos, logic and insanity, always aware that at any minute you could misstep and fall into the ebony, echoing inferno that called for you.


	6. Not For You, But Fear Itself

_This is the last one! I hope you have enjoyed them. I've decided to let you all choose my next one-shot subject. So what you like my next one-shot to be about? Just one character, like Joker, Jon, Bruce, or Gordon? Or any of these couples: Jon/Pam, Joker/Harley, Joker/Pam, Jon/Harley? It's up to you. Send your request in a review. Thanks for reading!_

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Fear wasn't the loud, invading clang of the phone that sat on your kitchen wall—the one you re-wallpapered just last Summer. You knew what it would bring and even the soothing tone of your cellphone could never disguise the news your caller ID would confirm. Fear wasn't bags of evidence, statements of confession, or even the cruel eyes that met your gaze as you interrogated, questioned, searched like a prophet did for truth. You knew how lost the city was, and you knew how like a lamb you were. You were also a Shepard, and fulfilled that responsibility. Yet you were aware of how you could and would never be a God. You were not vain, you were not an idealist, and you had seen as many atrocities as you had prevented. Fear was the people you came into contact with: men,women, children who seemed as normal as you, but whose hands were stained by drugs, extortion, sex, violence, murder, and death...so much death that hardened their eyes, firmed their mouths. It was a norm and it shouldn't have been. Murder should not be expected and yet it was. The only people who shed a tear were those affected, everyone else just changed the station. Fear was the lonely hours of night where you lied beside your most beloved and just stared at them, a person so full of caring and nurture; you wanted to hold them and cry, beg that they never become as deeply involved as you were on a daily basis. They saw the horrors, experienced a few, they were still affected, but they had never stood mere feet away as often as you had as the world was rend apart at the seams and threads went flying, frayed and singed. You longed for disillusionment, but you couldn't reattain that, because a utopia was a dystopia and no world was perfect, not anymore. But behind the darkness of your eyelids you saw it, your fear. Your fear was fear. There was so much to fear, but you feared for both the lost and the found, realizing even as you descended into slumber—a sleep hopefully untainted by the talons of reality—that fear was not the natural state of civilization, but too many were ignorant of that and like an oil spill, it was beginning to spread and pollute. How long until the blackness invaded you too?


End file.
